Words of Engagement Intergroup Dialogue program (WEIDP)
Apply to be a Words of Engagement facilitator!
Applications are now open to become a WEIDP facilitator!
WEIDP dialogue courses are co-facilitated by pairs or trios of facilitators of diverse social identities. Facilitators work together to design and co-lead a multi-session, 7-week dialogue course. A facilitator’s role includes attending facilitator training, developing the content for each dialogue with your co-facilitator, and managing communication with dialogue participants, both electronic and individual check-ins when appropriate. The estimated time commitment for WEIDP facilitators is about 7 hours per week.
These facilitator applications are for faculty, staff or graduate students. Undergraduate students who wish to become intergroup dialogue facilitators must register for and complete WEID300.
The Words of Engagement Intergroup Dialogue Program (WEIDP) is a for-credit social justice education program that brings together students of diverse social identity groups for facilitated face-to-face conversations about identity, power and accountability. Utilizing theory, experiential learning, and equity frameworks, WEIDP supports participants in exploring key questions about who we are, what we know about each other, and how cultural systems of power impact our lives and relationships. The program prepares students to navigate an increasingly diverse society through relationship building across and within difference and taking steps, both individually and collectively, to promote equity and justice.
WEIDP courses count towards the Cultural Competence Diversity Requirement. Courses are typically 1-credit dialogues that occur in the first and second half of the fall and spring semesters. Each dialogue is themed around a set of social identities (e.g. dialogue on race, gender, immigration, religious bias, ability, etc.) and is co-facilitated by trained intergroup dialogue facilitators. While most of our dialogue offerings are for undergraduate students, WEIDP occasionally offers non-credit professional programming and dialogues for faculty/staff and for-credit for-credit courses for graduate students.
Goals of Dialogue
Upon completion of this course, students will have developed the following dialogical skills.
Register for a Dialogue
Students can register for a dialogue course directly on Testudo. Each dialogue course consists of 3-4 themed sections. Once registered, we will ask the student to complete a profile that assists us in placing participants into a specific themed section. (e.g. a student who registers for WEID139: Dialogue on Race, Gender, and Immigration, may be placed into the dialogue section on Gender).
Our general undergraduate intergroup dialogue course is WEID139. ln addition to WEID139, WEIDP courses are offered within particular disciplines or living-learning communities.
Become a Facilitator
An essential feature of the dialogue process are the skilled facilitators who support participants' learning and their overall experience. The WEIDP facilitation team consists of UMD staff, graduate students and professionals from the surrounding area. They are educators with a depth of knowledge on various dimensions of identity (such as gender, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, national origin, ability/disability, religion, etc.) as well as knowledge about the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression.
While we do expect facilitators to join our program with some prior knowledge and experience with social justice and an existing passion for diversity, facilitators receive training from the university's new Intergroup Dialogue Training Center housed in the College of Education.
Facilitators may be undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty or staff members. Occasionally alumni may return to facilitate a dialogue section as well.
Undergraduate students who have taking an intergroup dialogue course are able to enroll in WEID300 to become a facilitator for the next semester's dialogue. Student Affairs graduate students are able to facilitate WEIDP for their practicum experience.
Faculty, staff and other graduate students are able to train to become facilitators in a three-day training program in the summer or winter for the following semester.
Apply to be a WEIDP facilitator!
Undergraduate students who wish to become intergroup dialogue facilitators must enroll in and complete the academic for-credit course WEID300.
Email your questions to dialogue@umd.edu.